Interim Budget 2019-20: India to bolster Artificial Intelligence industry for tech-driven society

Highlights: Government to establish National Artificial Intelligence Portal soon Data consumption in India has risen by 50 times in last five years: FM Placing an Indian astronaut in a space shuttle from India by 2022 is priority   While presenting the Interim Budget 2019-20 in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal identified nine priority areas for the tech-driven development in the country. The announcements made during the budget showed that the government has been banking on digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence to boost research, development and production. To actualise this ambition, Goyal announced that the government will develop a National Artificial Intelligence Portal soon. The portal is aimed to pass on the benefits of the technology to citizens. “India has become the second largest startup hub of the world. We are proud of the hard work and innovative ideas of our youth in this sector. A national programme on AI has been envisaged by the Govt. This should be catalysed by the national centre for Artificial Intelligence as a hub, along with other centres of excellence,” Goyal said. Apart from talking about AI, the minister also said that India was leading the world in mobile data consumption and the consumption has risen by 50 times in last five years. According to Cisco’s 13th annual Visual Networking Index (VNI), smartphone and internet usage in India is set to massively swell in the next three years and by 2022, it is claimed that there will be 829 million smartphone users in India, accounting for 60% of the population. The increase in smartphone users will fuel an uptick in internet traffic in the country estimating that by 2022 in India 646 petabytes (1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes) of data per day will be consumed. This is over 490 percent higher than the 108 petabytes consumed in 2017. Goyal also said that the cost of data, voice calls in India is now possibly lowest in world. He also noted that the mobile and mobile part manufacturing companies have increased from 2 to 268, though there is no clarity on the time frame of this increase. “Mobile and its parts manufacturing companies have grown from 2 to 268 now, creating thousands of jobs in both urban and rural areas of the country,” Goyal said, adding that the government aims to have one lakh digital villages in the next five years. He also touched on the importance of introducing electric vehicles. “India will drive on electric-vehicles with clean sources of energy production and lead world in use of renewable sources to cut oil imports,” said the Minister. Goyal also said that India had become the second largest hub of start-ups. “With job seekers becoming job creators. We are proud of the hard work and innovative ideas of our youth,” he added. The startup ecosystem saw over $10.5 billion worth of venture capital investments in 2018 in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Startup India initiative on August 15, 2015 while delivering his speech from Red Fort. Highlighting the importance of space programmes, Goyal talked about the Gaganyaan project, which aims at sending Indian astronauts to space. “Our seventh dimension is the aim to become launchpad of the world, placing an Indian astronaut in space by 2022: FM,” Goyal said. The minister also touched upon renewable energy and said that the government was committed to promoting renewable energy, and that it is determined in its initiative to set up the International Solar Alliance. Goyal claimed that the existing installed solar generation capacity had increased tenfold in last five years. Related Read: Demystifying smartphone AI

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